In his first convention speech, Morial said that he wanted to lead an “empowerment movement” that would eliminate inequality in five key areas: education, the economy, health and quality of life, civic engagement and civil rights and racial justice.

So how did his hometown paper, the New Orleans “Times-Picayune,” cover this momentous speech?

Rather than focus on how Morial plans to reinvigorate the civil rights group, the newspaper became obsessed with a brief section of the speech in which Morial said that his new empowerment drive “is a movement to defeat a new villain…James Crow, Esquire. As Dr. Robert Hill [author of a chapter in the league’s annual “State of Black America” report] says, ‘James Crow, Esquire’ represents the new, sometimes not so obvious structural inequality that persists 40 years [after the onset of the modern Civil Rights Movement].”

In a 4,377-word speech, that is what they chose to focus on?

This is just one example of why so many people distrust the White-owned media. Some things, such as this coverage, can’t be justified.

Not only did that story run under the headline, “Former mayor makes fiery national debut,” a second story the following Sunday carried the headline, “Skeptics denounce ‘blame-whitey’ tact.”

The newspaper tried to repackage Morial — the first Black mayor of New Orleans to win a majority of the White vote — as some kind of flaming militant. And they did so by saying that Harry Edwards, the University of California sociologist who encouraged track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos to give raised-fist “Black Power” salutes at the 1968 Olympics, coined the term “James Crow, Esquire” in 1982.

First, let’s define the term. Hill, a well-respected scholar, noted in his report: “There has been a strong shift from Jim Crow — the overt manifestation of racial hatred by individuals in white society — to James Crow, Esquire — the maintenance of racial inequality through covert processes of structure and institutions.”

Second, by giving credit to Harry Edwards for coining the term, the “Times-Picayune” demonstrates its own ignorance of the Civil Rights Movement, ignorance that can’t be glossed over by using LexisNexis data base searches.

As a reporter, I heard former NAACP Executive Director Benjamin L. Hooks use the term in the 1970s, long before Edwards supposedly created it. I heard Jesse Jackson use “James Crow, Esquire” in the 1980s. I heard Al Sharpton use it in the 1990s. And NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and others have used the term this decade.

Instead of “blaming whitey” — an anachronistic expression itself — the paper ignored Morial’s comment that, “I commit that we will work harder than ever before to build multi-racial coalitions to solve the challenges of the 21st Century.”

There are other digs in the story.

“The League, being tax-exempt, is supposedly nonpartisan…” It is, in fact, non-partisan.

And there’s this: “Although the Urban League is a nonpartisan organization, it is a nonpartisan organization that is overwhelmingly Democratic. James Crow, Esquire, it may safely be assumed, is a registered Republican.”

As any Journalism 101 student should know, it’s not safe to assume anything. Ever. The National Urban League has never polled its members on their political affiliation, therefore the “Times-Picayune” can only “assume” that it is overwhelmingly Democratic. And those who referred to “James Crow, Esquire” over the years, have used it to characterize Democratic and Republican officials. By the way, the chairman of the Urban League’s board of directors is a registered Republican.

While it can be argued that Morial’s hometown newspaper provided a textbook example of James Crow, Esquire, there is evidence that old Jim Crow thinking is still around. Fairness and Accuracy in the Media (FAIR) provides some telling research on Fox News Channel’s host Bill O’Reilly.

In April, O’Reilly hosted a fundraiser in Washington, D.C. for Best Friends, a charity that benefits inner-city students. When the singing group known as Best Men was running late, O’Reilly said, “Does anyone know where the Best Men are? I hope they’re not in the parking lot stealing our hubcaps.”

Earlier this year, he used the derogatory term “Mexican wetbacks.” And on Feb. 25, 1999, he said: “Will African-Americans break away from the pack thinking and reject immorality — because that’s the reason the family’s breaking apart — alcohol, drugs, infidelity. You have to reject that, and it doesn’t seem—and I’m broadly speaking here, but African-Americans won’t reject it.”

What African-Americans and everyone else should reject is all forms of racism, whether it is Jim Crow or James Crow, Esquire.